Urban Meyer has left no doubt that Braxton Miller is the horse who pulls the Ohio State offense, and Meyer is ready to give him a little more rein.

It’s a necessity, the coach said, considering the way defenses sometimes have muddled the OSU offense this season. The Buckeyes are averaging 453.7 yards and 40.7 points per game, but there were times in the first three games when the offense looked as if it had stepped in quicksand for a possession or three.

Meyer said that one way to avoid that is to give Miller more freedom to change plays at the line. That starts today, when the No. 16 Buckeyes (3-0) host Alabama-Birmingham (0-2) in OSU’s last nonconference game of the year.

“Probably the best conversation we’ve ever had was after our game with Cal (last week) — I just sat with him in his locker,” Meyer said. “Part of our problem was we were running plays that our quarterback should get us out of. (Offensive coordinator) Tom Herman can’t do it all the time, so the quarterback has got to get us in and out of plays.

“We’re going to try to do that with him this week a little bit more, because he has to. And the good news is that he’s all over it.”

Whether UAB has the defensive capability to do what Cal did last week remains to be seen. The Golden Bears, for example, played a lot of two-deep zone coverage, different from the man-to-man defenses it had shown in previous games. Miller often wanted to change things.

“You’ve just got to play with it,” Miller said. “You’ve got to find something that’s good for when they change it up like that.”

It’s the next developmental step for Miller in OSU’s spread offense. Meyer said there’s no indication the sophomore has ever done much play-changing in his career.

“I don’t get that feel that he’s used to thinking, ‘I don’t like this. Let’s go to this,’ ” he said.

From January through preseason camp, it wasn’t a priority to nurture that freedom, because the coaches were busy teaching the basics.

“We were so far behind in other areas,” Meyer said. “You saw the passing attack a year ago. It wasn’t real strong. So we had so far to go in certain areas that we kind of said, ‘OK, Tom Herman, you’ll get us in the right plays.’ ”

But the preparation for Cal’s defense was rendered moot when the Golden Bears came out in new defensive alignments, then switched up again in the second half. The idea was to try to keep Miller, the leading rusher in the Big Ten (125.7-yard average) from beating them with his feet and trying to thwart long passes.

The Buckeyes eventually prevailed on both fronts as Miller turned in a third straight performance of at least 300 total yards. But it was an exercise in futility at times, too.

“I’ve seen defenses in the last three weeks that I’ve never even dreamt of in my mind to try to stop the QB from running the football,” Herman said.

He understands the intent, though.

“It’s an interesting quandary to be in when you have such a dynamic runner back there,” Herman said. “Defensive coverages tend to be completely skewed opposed to what you grew up knowing. … Teams now are trying to get eight, nine guys in the box (near the line of scrimmage) to be sound against him pulling the ball and running.

“So the variety of coverages we see on first and second downs is absolutely mind-boggling.”

But they also can be exploited, if Miller can make the quick read and change.